


The Unvarnished Truth

by Cuzosu



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, M/M, Multi, Threesome, heavily implied threesome, not explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-01 20:04:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16290890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cuzosu/pseuds/Cuzosu
Summary: “Knights Vos, Kenobi, and Tachi,” began Master Windu, stern as usual. “The Council wishes to hear your report.”I’d like to hear it, too,Quinlan thought giddily.If only because I’ve no clue how to explain half of it in a way that won’t land us in disciplinary.





	The Unvarnished Truth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jynx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jynx/gifts).



> Many thanks to ShaeTiann for beta work and batting ideas about with me. Thanks also to Saner for talking titles with me, because WOW, was I brainfried at the time. 
> 
> Call it rated M for language and a lot of sexual implications, if nothing explicit. 
> 
> Not entirely what was requested for a prompt, but it's clearly headed in that direction by the end.

Double doors opened to reveal the grand chamber beyond...and the silent, waiting Council. The trio paced forward calmly, despite their collective sense of impending doom. Upon reaching the proper placement, all three halted as one. They stood shoulder to shoulder, heads high, dreading the recriminations so likely to come.

“Knights Vos, Kenobi, and Tachi,” began Master Windu, stern as usual. “The Council wishes to hear your report.”

 _I’d like to hear it, too,_ Quinlan thought giddily. _If only because I’ve no clue how to explain half of it in a way that won’t land us in disciplinary._

Obi-Wan stepped forward, intending to speak, but Master Yaddle raised one small, clawed hand. “An _unvarnished_ report, Knight Kenobi,” she subtly requested, miniscule traces of amusement clear to the ginger; when Naboo happened and he nearly lost his Master, she had been the one to help him work through the maelstrom of emotions. “You are gaining your Master’s reputation for having a silver tongue.”

Bowing, Kenobi quirked a smile at the diminutive Councilor and stepped back on the other side of the Kiffar who’d requested assistance on a mission. _Should be interesting to see the results,_ he mused. Keeping a good sabacc face was one of the more challenging things he’d done lately.

“Masters,” came Siri’s voice as she claimed the oral report from Quinlan. “We were sent to gather information on a gang, as you know. But despite our subtle forays into the area, our intel was piecemeal and breaking in to slice their offline servers was...not going to happen without a good distraction, but we knew we’d need a third person to help, Force sensitive if at all possible.”

“So you diverted Knight Kenobi,” observed Master Windu, visage grim. “Who was ordered to return home and _rest_ after his mission.”

“Oh, he rested,” she assured the Council blithely.

Adi buried her face in her hands; she knew that tone. Her former Padawan was about to gift the Council with collective headaches...and would enjoy it for years afterward, even if she earned punishment. _Please don’t,_ the Councilor prayed in vain.

“Knight Vos and I had been acting the part of newlyweds who just moved in, so when we noticed that his comm was in range and presumably on planet, we soft-pinged him to ask if he was up for some fun.”

“Intend for fun on that mission, the Council did _not,_ ” was Yoda’s tart rebuke.

Siri was unfazed. “I realize that, Master Yoda,” she informed him respectfully. “Yet, had Knight Kenobi not been available, that data would not now be in Judicial’s hands, because Knight Vos and I could not see a faster, more efficient method of collecting the information.”

Qui-Gon Jinn stared intently at his former Padawan, whom he hadn’t seen in months. “Knight Tachi, you are dancing around just what the three of you _did_ and I, for one, am imagining any number of possible scenarios.”

The redhead’s eyes narrowed, amusement set aside. His feelings of betrayal had merely lessened, not fled, and since the man had not come forward to apologize to him, the Darker emotions fanned embers of hurt and distrust. At least, until fingers flicked air in his peripheral vision and he saw Quinlan attempting to distract him. It worked.

Tachi leveled a cool gaze back at her friend’s former Master. “Bluntly, so the Council cannot mistake my meaning: Kenobi assisted us by setting scenes for a supposed infidelity fight and playing rear guard while I snuck in to snatch the data via on-site slicing. We came back to the apartment the next morning and Vos was waiting, acted the wronged spouse excellently. Stayed a week after the handoff to avoid suspicion; kept up the act the whole time.”

Master Gallia sighed and rubbed at her temples. “So, you’re saying that you went for the jilted lover/jealous spouse routine and it worked?”

“Sounds accurate,” the blonde Knight grinned.

“It seems suspicious that they fell for such a ruse,” mused Even Piell. The miracle was that he sounded no more accusatory than Adi.

“Not so much,” disagreed Kenobi.

 _Well, if he’s not going to keep his mouth shut, I won’t, either!_ Vos grinned. “We’ve been friends with benefits for years. I’m pretty sure we can sell the dating/cheating act.”

Siri rolled her eyes. “And it’s not like you guys don’t do enough annoying things around the house. Obi’s a neat freak and you leave messes like a kid.” It sounded mean, but the corner of her mouth twitched with restrained laughter. “And I get bitchy, so I know I’m not the perfect roommate, either.”

“At least we’re all compatible bedmates,” noted the redhead blandly.

Sudden silence echoed in the Council chamber. Windu turned a fierce glare on Kenobi. “Attachments are forbidden by the Code,” he reminded them all, stern and officious.

Knight Kenobi countered with a diplomat’s smile, formal and polite but potentially hiding a _fuck you_ behind that impressive facade. _“Friends_ with benefits,” he reiterated firmly. “The fact that we sometimes have sex with one or both of the others has no bearing on our friendship.”

“As if we’d let it get in the way of our duty as Jedi,” scoffed Siri. She carefully didn’t add, _Besides, it’s not like we’re exclusive. We just keep coming back to that solid friendship and great sex._

Vos chimed in with, “Part of the reason we work as friends with benefits is that we all understand our jobs come first.”

“Which is why you pulled your relationship into the mission,” Piell remarked dryly, dubious.

“It was already part of the mission,” came Tachi’s rebuttal. The blonde’s words had a layer of velvet and steel to them; she wasn’t afraid to fight for her rights and it showed. “Quinlan and I had already been assigned. That being the case, and since getting one of us in while the other distracted them failed twice already, Obi-Wan’s arrival had excellent timing and provided us with a third to play backup while one raided and the other distracted our opponents. We asked before we brought him in, just in case. He told us that he’d been ordered mandatory leave and was dissatisfied enough with his last mission that he’d prefer a distraction until he could meditate it out.” She shrugged. “Leave is nice, I suppose, but when Kenobi gets like that, he needs rotations’ worth of meditation or several rounds of enthusiastic sex.”

Qui-Gon Jinn steepled his fingers in front of his face. He didn’t particularly want to hear about his former Padawan’s sex life, especially when this friends with benefits situation had clearly been going on for some time─and under his nose for at least some of that. It drove home further how he’d distanced himself from the redhead. Guilt gnawed at him again. “Your collective sex life aside─and, please, refrain from sharing further details with me─the mission went well?”

Quinlan considered the older Jedi for a long moment. “Not until Kenobi agreed to help,” he finally told the Council.

Mace Windu scowled. “You want me to believe that one Knight who hadn’t even been debriefed in person for his previous mission yet was able to turn the tide?”

“I’ve worked with them before, Masters,” Obi-Wan blandly informed the entire Council. “It probably helped that we were already good friends. Most Jedi don’t easily play the roles we did, which had been at least partially established by the Council’s orders for my fellow Knights to share quarters.”

“Which,” Siri so pointedly noted, “only had one bed, I’d like to mention.”

There was a moment of stunned silence in which several Councilors blinked, astonished. Adi Gallia sighed. “We will look into who arranged your quarters.” It was a concession. Not a happy one, perhaps, but a concession. “Thank you for bringing it to our attention. Other Jedi might not take it as gracefully as you Knights have.”

Yoda hummed thoughtfully. “Sent a message, Judicial has. Data they have received. Pleased they have been, Jedi assistance to have.” His mobile ears twitched, as if to flick away the frustration of the meeting so far. “Dismissed, you all are. Leave, you will take.”

The three young Knights bowed in unison, then turned and strode to the door. Jinn felt his heart clench at another wasted chance as the view constricted and the chamber shut behind them.

Adi nudged the tall, dense Master beside her. “Go apologize, Qui-Gon,” she told him. “If you leave it ‘til it’s too late, you will hate yourself for it. Neither of you deserve that.”

Fear gripped him, but Qui-Gon stood allowed himself to hesitate for no more than a moment; he’d dithered too long already. _Years I should have had my Knighted former Padawan over for meals, or to sparring matches when we both were free. I have deprived myself; I have deprived Obi-Wan; and I have deprived Anakin of a brother Padawan who could have eased the way for him._ Though Master Jinn’s internal self-reprimand was harsh, that made it no less true.

As the Council itself parted ways, Mace muttered, “Shadows! Why is their idea of relaxation inevitably something the Code doesn’t countenance?”

Double doors closed behind Qui-Gon, the other Councilors chatting idly among themselves before parting for lunch. Even eyed the Haruun Kal Master with no little amusement. “I seem to remember a Masters-only session where Yoda proposed making young Kenobi a Jedi Shadow and you seconded it.”

Windu glared; the other Master’s atypical humor rubbed salt in open wounds. “Don’t remind me. I regret encouraging the notion.”

Smiling at her fellow Councilors, Yaddle gently reminded them, “Obi-Wan has proven quite suited for a Shadow’s life. If nothing else, the missions he has completed for us have been highly valuable and his Padawan years were all the evidence I needed that it would be so.”

Chastened, Mace conceded the argument. “I just hope he can ease up on the headaches he causes,” muttered the bald Jedi.

“Like his Master has?” Piell smiled sadly. “Jinn is a good addition to this Council, but he’s not nearly so opinionated since Naboo.”

Adi joined the conversation with, “If this works out as I hope, we may get the old Qui-Gon back. Kenobi certainly hasn’t lost his spirit.”

They considered that for a long moment, then the Haruun Kal Master stood. “I don’t know whether I should hope your attempt at throwing them back into an amiable relationship works or not, Adi, and I’d rather eat lunch than think on it right now.”

Laughing in his face was not the dignified Councilor thing to do, but they were friends, too. “I’ll join you,” she offered.

“Only if you stop talking about that,” warned Windu, half in jest.

The duo collected their datapads and filtered from the chamber with the other Council members, but headed for the commissary instead of other duties.

  


Obi-Wan strode away from the Council chambers with his friends, still slightly off kilter from having to deal with the full quorum in attendance; normally, the other Councilors were more tactful than to have his former Master present for a debriefing. This time, though, they had all gone a bit beyond their mission parameters.

“I don’t know about you two,” Vos began, irrepressible, “but I’m thinking dinner, a movie, and maybe a few rounds before bed.”

“‘Sabers or sex?” asked Siri, tongue in cheek. Her eyes danced with mischief.

Vos’ gaze slid to their ginger companion and he responded with surprisingly little humor; it was overridden by concern. “If we were going to spar, we should have done so right before our turn debriefing and showed up looking like we hadn’t cleaned up after sex.”

Kenobi snorted softly. There were footsteps approaching them from behind; he could guess who it likely was and was in no hurry to talk to the other man. “Quin,” he chided, amusement quirking one corner of his mouth, “Baiting the Council is not generally something Knights should do.”

“Maybe not,” retorted the Kiffar Jedi, “but they’d have deserved it and more, this time.”

“And,” added Qui-Gon, “I’m pretty sure I taught you that it is for the Council’s own good to be called out, now and then.”

Obi-Wan turned, a knot in his throat. “Somehow,” the Knight replied, mildly, “I don’t think _nearly every time_ counts as ‘now and then,’ Master Jinn.”

The tall man bowed his head in acknowledgement of a point scored. “Perhaps not.” Somber eyes drifted to Knights Tachi and Vos, then back to his former Padawan. “Might I speak to you in private?” he asked, tentative in body language but not in words.

 _You always did have a silver tongue, Master,_ thought Kenobi, a touch bitterly. _Except when it comes to people you know well, at which point your manners too often desert you._

Siri noted the byplay just as clearly as Quinlan did; she leaned in and kissed the redhead, then rested her forehead on his and murmured, “Dinner, Obi. After that depends on what you’re up to, but I know you, stress, and food don’t do well together, so you will eat and we’ll help you unwind. Doesn’t matter if it’s sparring, sex, or just cuddling on the couch with a holovid.” One finger trailed suggestively down his chest as she stepped away and winked.

Vos took his friend’s face in both hands. “If you’re not in your quarters for dinner in thirty minutes, Kenobi, we will track you down and drag you there. You need to relax more than you need to talk, right now, so I won’t give this conversation more time than it will take us to arrange dinner and get to your rooms.” It was spoken loud enough that the Master easily overheard, but then, subtle about protecting his loved ones, Quinlan was not.

In moments, the two other Knights were out of sight, striding quickly down the halls. Jinn and Kenobi walked slowly toward the younger man’s quarters, taking less popular routes to avoid interruptions. Neither of them, it seemed, knew how to begin the conversation.

Finally, Qui-Gon offered, “I am sorry, Obi-Wan, for the way I treated you. It was...unkind.”

The Knight scoffed internally, but maintained an outer facade of strained serenity. “Which time?”

Jinn winced. That was a pointed barb─and well deserved. Still, the words struggled to get past the knot of wounded pride in his throat. “I...wronged you in...many ways, Obi-Wan, but...perhaps the worst was...overlooking your needs.” He drew a deep breath in through his crooked nose, admitting in a rush, “Which I did before and after I took you on as my Padawan, and then again after Naboo, when I...thought only of Anakin until Mace rubbed my nose in that particular mistake.” The Master glanced aside, ashamed. “You deserved better. You _did_ better for me, on numerous occasions, and I…. I did poorly by you, Knight Kenobi, and I apologize.”

Slightly dazed but still fresh from a mission and Council debrief, sore and emotionally fraught, Obi-Wan didn’t respond to the words. Perhaps it was better that he didn’t, though, as Qui-Gon rambled on, fumbling words and reminding the Knight of all the reasons he hadn’t reached out to the Master first, after Naboo.

“I...did very little well on the Naboo mission. High emotions are not something I am used to dealing with from myself and it...off-balanced me. We have all suffered for it: you, Anakin, and me. Anakin would benefit from his brother-Padawan’s presence in his life, but I have made that awkward and painful, so he has been mostly left floundering, to adjust─or not─on his own. The Council has not let me intervene with the other children unless there is a physical altercation. It has left him isolated.”

Knight Kenobi leveled his former Master with a baleful stare. “What happened to the rebellious maverick Jedi?” he queried pointedly, protective instincts rising at the thought of a child in distress─which young Skywalker most assuredly was, if the Council had been allowed to meddle so.

Jinn’s mouth opened, then closed without a sound. He blinked. “I. _Damn._ How did I miss that?” It was a rhetorical question, asked plaintively of the room.

The redhead sighed. “Really, if you’re going to forget how to push the Council toward a better path, you ought to resign your seat, because they _need_ to be questioned.” He resisted the urge to mention that part of why he had begun rebelling against the Council as a Knight was the presence of his former Master on it; the knowledge likely wouldn’t have helped anything. Instead, he checked the time. “Look, I have to get to dinner or they _will_ come drag me back to my own rooms and draw attention the rest of the Council wouldn’t appreciate. That said...I am...not sure how long I’m comfortable being around you again, yet, but I will pick up your Padawan at tenth hour, the rotation after tomorrow.” It being a weekend, no classes were likely to be scheduled, and since he had several weeks of leave lined up already, assisting a Padawan in need would at least be an interesting diversion.

Qui-Gon wanted desperately to hug the young man in front of him; he hadn’t even seen him for debriefing from Naboo until this rotation, because the rest of the Council were interfering busybodies. He refrained only because the need to make amends was greater and physical contact would not yet be welcome. “Agreed,” rasped the Master, and tried to smile.

Obi-Wan noted the effort to respect his boundaries. “In two rotations, then, Master,” he said, lips quirked in a wry smile as he bowed with a touch less formality and left. Behind him, Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn stared. That light bit of humor gave the older man more hope than he’d had in over a year; their relationship might yet recover.

Shaking himself from his stupor, the long-haired Master exited the room. He would tell Anakin the good news.


End file.
